SYRACUSEDonna Sharrett knows that generations of Americans, generalists
and specialists alike, have drawn a distinction between fine art and crafts.
From baskets to handblown glass, craft objects have traditionally been
regarded as more functional than artistic, even if part of that function
is decorative.

For nearly a decade, Ms. Sharrett, who lives in Cornwall, NY, on the west
bank of the Hudson, has straddled that sometimes arbitrary divide.

Trained as a painter, Ms. Sharrett, 41, used to produce abstract landscapes.
But more recently she has created an unusual variety of needlework constructions
that have caught the attention of collectors and curators.

After numerous group shows, and a solo show this year at the Cheryl Pelavin
Gallery in Manhattan, those needlework constructions are now the focus
of Mementos, an exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse
that remains on view through Nov. 12.

Mementos, made of dried rose petals joined in elaborate patterns
by lacelike sections of meticulously hand-stitched, artificial hair, resemble
big doilies. They bring to mind objects from folk or religious rituals,
although at first glance a viewer may not be able to determine their purpose.

"They're familiar, homey and labor-intensive," said Thomas Piché
Jr., the senior curator at the Everson who organized the show. "They remind
me of mandalas. In Donna's art there are irregularities that reveal the
touch of the human hand."

In an interview in the small, tidy studio at her home, Ms. Sharrett said
she created the Mementos in memory of her mother, who died of cancer
a decade ago.

"I traveled to North Carolina to take care of her during the last months
of her life," Ms. Sharrett recalled. "While I was there, partly to fill
the time and partly to give her a last opportunity to mother me, even
though I had become her caretaker, we pulled out her unfinished needlework
projects and I set out to finish them."

Her mother's death hit her hard, she said. When she returned home, Ms.
Sharrett said, she threw away her paints, brushes and pictures-in- progress
and found herself facing a creative void.

"A nurse who had looked in on me while I was taking care of my mother
wrote and asked me to finish a drawing I had started during that period.
I wrote and told her I wasn't an artist anymore," Ms. Sharrett said.

The nurse sent a follow-up letter with a check and instructed her not
to send it back; she wanted to purchase the drawing. Ms. Sharrett completed
the colored-pencil work ("I was drawing on old maps that my mother had
collected") and found herself making art again. But it wasn't enough.

"All of a sudden, someone is gone," Ms. Sharrett explained. "You go
back, and life continues. Something seemed wrong. I felt there should
be a place-holder to remind us."

Plunging into historical research at the New York Public Library, she
discovered Victorian-era memento mori, or reminders of death, including
bracelets and lockets made with locks of hair from the deceased. She
studied traditions like the Mexican Day of the Dead, with its candles
and playful statuettes of skeletons in daily-life poses.

"Things just came together: my needlework, hair from the Victorian jewelry
and flowers from different cultures that use flowers to honor the dead,"
Ms. Sharrett said. In the early works she dripped candle wax on delicate
strands of hair lace that she made in the shapes of collars. She also
made handkerchiefs of dried flower petals stitched onto paper or fabric
and embroidered with abbreviations from the world of contemporary medicine.

One is marked "H.I.V." Others bear the initials C.D.C. and CPR, for
the Centers for Disease Control and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. "Previously,
it never dawned on me to use needlework in my art," she said.

Cheryl Pelavin, a printmaker who has operated a gallery in TriBeCa since
1981, mostly exhibited the work of painters before she recently began
representing Ms. Sharrett. "Donna sent me slides out of the blue, and
I was very impressed," Ms. Pelavin said, adding, "She has a strong structure."

"Her art is not about provocation for its own sake," she said. "Donna
came to the conclusion that art has to have a meaning and a purpose."

Ms. Sharrett takes the titles for her Mementos from letters that
her mother sent her over the years. One is called "Life Is Strange:
The 31st Memento." Another, with a thicket of French knots at its core,
is titled "She Got Very Homesick: The 30th Memento."

Coincidentally, the Everson has a long tradition of collecting and displaying
craft arts, with a special focus on ceramics. Ms. Sharrett's show appears
alongside the museum's "Ceramic National 2000," the 30th in a series.

A fortresslike poured-concrete building built in 1968, the Everson is
the first museum that I. M. Pei designed. It recently announced plans
to build a new wing that Mr. Pei, now 83, has also designed featuring
a glass-covered atrium.

Ms. Sharrett's work has been recognized by critics and curators as a
soulful art that humanizes its materials. "Their tactile quality is
seductively beautiful," said Mr. Piché, the curator.

Just as important, said Ms. Sharrett, her needlework pieces "make people
remember something, even if they don't know exactly what it is."